This is Only the Beginning
by Kawillis7
Summary: A little snippet from Mockingjay from Peeta's POV. Peeta wakes up in the capital and endures, for the first time, the worst kind of torture possible.


**A/N:** Hello! My name is Kaylie and I'm new at this! So please bear with me. I enjoy writing and The Hunger Games...I combined the two and got, well, this.

I have no Beta and I do all my proof reading, so I apologize in advance for any typos or mess ups.

If you enjoy this, please read and review! I will definitely write more if this is the case.

That being said, here is my take on what happened to Peeta in the Capitol. Oh, and Happy Holidays!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own The Hunger Games or any of the characters therein.

My name is Peeta Mellark. I am seventeen years old. I am from District 12. I survived The Hunger Games twice. I am in love with Katniss Everdeen. She was rescued from the arena. I was taken by the Capitol. I should be dead. Why am I not dead?

It has to have been hours. Days. Weeks. Since I was taken from the arena. Peacekeepers have beaten me, humiliated me, and manipulated me into trying to get answers. Answers I don't know. Answers about rebels and District 13.

The only thing I knew about was Katniss being the Mockingjay. That's all she knew as well. I hope that wherever she is, she's okay.

Thinking of Katniss fills me with an agony that can only be attached to separation. All I can hope is that she is safe, but from what I've been informed, that's a given. I am just so glad that it wasn't her, it wasn't her, it wasn't her. It was me that the Capitol got. The brutal torture that has ensued is something I am willing to put up with in her place.

I sit on the floor in my cell and try to put two and two together. Katniss and I split up. She screamed for me. The arena blew up. I vaguely remember a hovercraft lifting me.

"You're not going to figure it out, Loverboy. There's no sense in losing time trying to grab facts you won't ever get." Johanna Mason retorts. We share a cell, and have gone through torture together.

"I just want to make sense of everything," I sigh.

"You'll spend all your time thinking and then being beaten senselessly. Seems like a good life," Johanna says sarcastically. When I don't answer, she quiets a bit. "Do you think they'll have limits on this torture?"

I laugh at that in disbelief. "Johanna, these people threw 24 kids into an arena and made them slaughter each other. I'm sure some flogging and beating won't satisfy their tastes. They're murderers. Sadists."

Johanna looks at me with an expression I can't quite fathom.

"I wonder if the Capitol took Katniss in my place..." I stop for a second and look Johanna full in the face. "Do you think they would kill her?"

Now it was Johanna's turn to laugh. "Are you kidding me? Snow would have so much fun torturing her, ostracizing and breaking her, publicly eviscerating her. You name it. But they don't have your fiancée, they have you."

"She's not my fiancée," I sigh. "It was all for the cameras."

"All of it?" She asks.

When I turn to ask her to elaborate, Peacekeepers arrive and wordlessly take me with them. I shoot Johanna a panicked glance before I go. She looks as scared as I feel.

When I arrive in my next torture chamber, I try to brace myself for what's to come. It's a small room with a table and a single chair. On the table, in front of the chair, is a screen... Some kind of monitor.

I'm seated in the chair and cuffed. I don't try to fight. I just let them prepare me for what's to come.

I'm staring at the screen, trying to figure out why it's there, when I look up and see him.

President Snow is there, wearing a suit and a white rose on the lapel. He smiles when he sees me. Sinister.

"Mr. Mellark. Always a pleasure."

I just nod and wait for what he has to say.

"What's this? A quiet Peeta? Well. That's not something I'm used to. You're always so ready to speak, specifically for Miss Everdeen."

"Katniss has trouble speaking publicly," I say to her defense.

"She also has trouble being a symbol for rebellion, or so she's told me, but that didn't stop her." He turns on the monitor and I see Katniss on a rooftop, shooting down Capitol planes.

"It seems as though Miss Everdeen is fine without your help."

I'm not listening to him. I'm seeing her, my Katniss, as she so bravely takes down the enemy.

"You will never control her," I say.

"Oh? But what if I could control a person who was very important to her? Do you think she would continue to play her game? Do you think she'd break?"

Instantly I think of Prim. "No!" I shout. "Stay away from Prim! She's too young! Don't touch her."

Snow chuckles. "It's not Prim I'm interested in controlling." He motions toward the door and a man comes in. He's wearing a white lab coat and absolutely no traces he's from the Capitol.

The man hands Snow a syringe filled with a yellowish tinted substance. "Do you know what this is, Mr. Mellark?"

I do. I've read about it. Saw tributes die from it during their Games. But most of all, I've had experience with it.

Snow is saying something to me, but I'm not in the small room with him anymore. I'm in my first Games, sleeping under a tree. There's a loud thud. Someone screams, "Run!" And then there's pain followed by very vivid hallucinations.

"It's tracker jacker venom," I say quietly.

"I always knew you were the smart one. Now. If you can cooperate with me, this can be very easy for you and I."

I just look at him and clench my teeth.

"Miss Everdeen has to be eliminated. Do you agree?"

I stare ahead and shake my head vigorously.

"She is a threat to the system."

"No," I say.

"If she keeps up her charade, everything will fall. She must be killed, and you will do it."

I spit in his face.

Suddenly, men in white coats run in and hold me down as one of them plunges the needle into my arm. All the contents of the syringe are emptied into my veins. I let out a strangled cry once the pain hits me.

"Katniss Everdeen is not real," President Snow simply says.

I'm trying to grip reality, but it's slipping from me quickly. "She's real!" I say and let out another yell of pain.

Someone turns on the monitor and I see myself sleeping under the tree during my first Games.

"I created her. She's a mutt. She was created to kill you."

As if on cue, Katniss cuts the tracker jacker nest and drops it on the career pack, myself included.

"She tried to kill you," Snow says.

I watch the screen wide eyed. She tried to kill me!

Snow moves on to the next clip. Katniss turns her bow on me in the arena. I am breathing heavily at this point.

"She doesn't love you. She never did," Snow says, and I'm rewarded with Katniss kissing Gale on the screen.

"No!" I say. I bust through my restraints and push the monitor off the table. It hits the ground and shatters. I think I hear Snow laughing as Peacekeepers rush in and drag me by my arms out of the room.

Shiny. Everything is shiny. And why are so many people laughing at once?

I think I'm hallucinating. No. This is real. Katniss is real. She tried to kill me. Katniss loves me. She kissed Gale.

I'm thrown ceremoniously into my cell and the door slams.

"Peeta?" I hear Johanna Mason. What is she doing here? How did she survive the Quell?

I hear the boom of the cannon. Another tribute has died. Another child, so young and innocent, has been killed. They will never return home.

But wait.

I'm not in the Games right now.

I hear someone laughing maniacally and see my mother step out of the shadows. But it's not my mother. She's burnt from head to toe and has claws. She's laughing at me.

"You poor boy," she says in a mocking tone. "Fell in love with a Seam brat and look where it got you!" She laughs again and pulls her hand back, preparing to hit me. I duck my head, ready to take the blow, and realize the floor has turned into a shiny tar. I lift my hands up and watch as the tar oozes out from in between my fingers. I hear screaming in the distance and realize it's me.

"Peeta? Peeta! It's not real!" Johanna is nearby. I see her in the corner, arms out as if trying to help me. She's shiny. Is she an angel? I hear a small whimper and stop screaming.

Oh no.

"Peeta?" She says quietly. I turn around and there she is. Katniss. What is she doing here in the Capitol? And why is she covered in blood? She drops to her knees and falls into my arms. She's been wounded and is bleeding badly.

I start to cry. "No no no no," I keep saying over and over again. "Katniss..." I say.

"She's not real! She's not here!" Johanna shouts.

But how is she not real? She's in my arms. And at the rate in which she's losing blood, she won't be alive much longer. So I decide to hold her close. "I love you," I say through tears.

"Stay with me," she says, strangely at ease.

"Always," I whisper.

The darkness ascends on me.

When I come to, I'm confused. What happened?

"Katniss?" I croak, lifting myself off the floor.

"She's not here," Johanna says. The look she gives me is unsettling. "Are you... Are you okay?"

"She tried to kill me," I say bluntly.

"Who?"

"Katniss?"

"When?"

"In the Games. Our first Games. She dropped tracker jackers on me."

Johanna knows what I'm talking about. She watched those Games. She had to; she was a mentor during those Games.

"Katniss was just trying to survive. We all were in our Games."

I open my mouth to speak, but get interrupted.

"And she does love you. I heard you mumbling about her loving someone else in your sleep. Your fiancée really does love you."

"She's not my fiancée," I say. "And how can you be so sure? What about Gale?"

"Did you ever consider the fact that, maybe, just maybe, he was the one who put the moves on her?"

"What makes you say it then?" I ask suddenly. "How do you know how she feels?"

"Because I saw how she looked at you in the Quell. How she protected you. She would've died if you died. She needs you."

Suddenly, I'm on the beach in the Arena with Katniss. "I need you," she said. And it seemed so genuine. Maybe it was.

"What have they done to me?" I ask.

Johanna looks at me, hatred evident in her eyes. "Oh, they hijacked you."

"Hijacked?" I ask.

"They injected you with tracker jacker venom to try and alter your mind. Seems like it didn't work though."

"It could," I say quietly. "After a few times, it could work."

"And what good would that do? Just turn you into a psycho?"

"Or a weapon," I whisper.

Johanna is trying to comprehend what I'm saying.

"They could make me lethal, set me lose on her when she least expects it. I'm strong, I could... I could... Kill her so easily."

"She could shoot you."

"She wouldn't know."

"Peeta." I look at Johanna. She's suddenly become desperate. "Don't let them break you. Don't let them do this to you."

I shrug. "These people have no limits. Do I have a choice?"

"Well, we could get the hell out of dodge," she says.

I snort. "If only it were that easy."


End file.
